No Regrets
by JPMod
Summary: Ten years after her breakup with Ron, Kim reflects on the past after finding out how her former boyfriend is fairing in life. [Story 2 of 'The Reflections Universe' series]


Disclaimer: All Kim Possible characters are the copyright of Walt Disney Corporation. I'm just  
borrowing them to write up a story with no intention of making any money. This is for fun. All other characters in my stories, that Disney doesn't own, are mine. :)

A/Ns: Well, I thought I wouldn't write-up a follow-up to "Don't Look Back," but after reading some of the reviews for "DLB" and thinking about it, my mind kept churning up an idea on doing a follow-up. So this is what some of you were hoping for, a follow-up story based on Kim's POV set many years after "DLB."

Just a word of warning: Given Kim and Ron broken up in "DLB," don't expect me to ever get them back together. As Ron said in "DLB," it's over. However, I can't vision Ron letting the break-up hold him back when it comes to loving another. Read this story and find out.

BTW, my mind also came up with an idea for a **third** story based on a third character's POV. Given there will be three stories tied together, I've named these three stories _The Reflection Trilogy_.

Story rating: Rated K+ (aka PG)  
Written: January 2006

Summery: Ten years after her break-up with Ron, Kim reflects on the past after finding out how her former boyfriend is fairing in life. (Story 2 of _The Reflection Trilogy_)

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No Regrets  
By JuPMod (aka JPMod)

For everyone, employees and customers alike, walking about in the large supermarket, no one bother anyone else. People were going around minding their businesses as usual, thus they paid no attention to the young woman with cropped, shoulder-length red hair pushing a shopping cart up and down the aisles. She was grocery shopping like most people, so no one minded her.

Yet if anyone were to have paid closer consideration to her, one would have seen she has green eyes hiding behind dark sunglasses. The eyes, along with her face, would have made many noticed who she was, and that was something she tried to avoid as much as possible.

For Kim Possible, 30-year-old top agent of Global Justice, she just wanted to have a normal day shopping. She was human like everyone else, thus she needed to sleep, bathe, be entertained, and of course, eat, thus why she was in the supermarket – to stock her kitchen and refrigerator. As GJ's top agent, she could have easily just ordered her food and other essentials to her small house, yet she occasionally knew she would have gone insane if she remained coop up inside all the time.

Pushing her cart down one aisle, she approached the books and magazines section of the store. She grinned, knowing she could take a small break from shopping by reading through some of the magazines. It was a relaxing habit, whenever she grocery shopped.

She picked up People's magazine and skimmed through the articles. The redhead then read through a few stories in US magazine. After putting down that magazine, her eyes scanned the racks before one particular magazine made her eyes went wide in surprised. Her hand reached out to hold up the latest issue of Forbes's magazine – a highly, well-known business magazine.

Her mind couldn't believe what her eyes were telling her, but it was true nevertheless. On the cover was a picture of a blonde man she has last seen ten years ago. A man she once loved but couldn't anymore due to their moral differences. The picture showed that he has grown leaner with a narrower face, and his well-dressed gray suit & tie, along with oval round glasses, made him quite handsome and business like. There were no doubts about it. It was Ron Stoppable.

Reading the main headline under the portrait, it said, 'Ronald Dean Stoppable: Bueno Nacho's Superman! Taking the World by Storm!' This made Kim raised her eyebrows, for the Ron she had knew was so layback and lazy that she couldn't fathom him ever be successful in business.

Looking at the smiling man, Kim remembered the break-up clearly, like it just happened yesterday. She just couldn't understand why Ron, his folks, and her family was so adamant that she had a problem not coping with that doomed mission which resulted in ten innocent people being executed by terrorists. Far as she knew, she had grown up and decided that she would carry a gun with her on all future missions, and if it was necessary, kill to protect any more lost of innocent life. Ron had said he wouldn't even dare carry a gun and kill others. She had said he was weak and a loser in thinking that way. Tempers had flared, more heated words had been exchanged, and before anyone could had done any damage control, the dam had burst, destroying what many had thought was a promising relationship and future of two young people.

Soon afterward, Global Justice had offered Kim, bitter and angry that many were blaming her for the break-up, a job. She had immediately accepted it, knowing she has to make a clean slate from her past to build a future. The old Kim Possible was dead, and a new one has arisen to take her place as one of GJ's elite.

Fingers opening up the magazine to the main story on Ron, Kim read the article and was again blown on how much her former beau has changed in ten years. Starting at his successful invention of the Naco, the commentary told about his career. Two years into college, he'd accepted an offer by Bueno Nacho for an intern job with the company's food research & development division. He'd moved to California, where after another two years, he had graduated from the University of California with a Bachelor Degree in Business. His ten years in the company had helped produced many more new food products, and his many ideas on where the company should head had shaped Bueno Nacho to become an ever bigger corporate giant than it was before Dr. Drakken had temporary took it over thirteen years ago. Only one month ago, Ron has become the youngest vice-president in the company's history.

Kim was not surprised that there was no mention of Ron's former life as a crime fighter. This was a business magazine, not the tabloids, and the break-up of Team Possible was very old ten-year-old news that it was not worth mentioning at all. The article was focus on the positive aspects of Ron's career, and the editor knew that any negatives would not look good.

"You certainly came a long way, Ron," Kim murmured with a wistful grin. Yet she knew her career was nothing to sneeze at as well.

Two years after joining GJ, she'd completed her internship training and graduated from Upperton University with a Bachelor Degree in Crime Analysis & Investigation with a minor in military history and tactics. Her graduation couldn't have came at a perfect time, for the world's major powers had enough of the constant terrorist strikes and fear the world had known since 9/11. With close cooperation between all elite undercover military divisions, including Global Justice, Operation White Knight had been commenced to seek out and destroy all terrorist cells everywhere in the world. It had taken two years, but Operation White Knight has been successful, including the capture of the man who had started it all with 9/11 – Osama bin Laden.

The operation even had included her arch foes she had fought in high school – Dr. Drakken, Shego, Duff Killigan, Senior Sr. and Senior Jr. (who kindly surrender their hobby of being villains, knowing it didn't pay anymore to do so), Dementor, and some others. The only exception was Monkey Fist, for someone else outside the operation has eliminated him. To this day, she still had no clue to whom have done it, but least the insane ex-lord wouldn't bother anyone anymore with his crazy quests for being the Ultimate Monkey Master.

Since Operation White Knight, Kim's career skyrocketed through the ranks of GJ. Not only she had become GJ's top best agent, she also became an invaluable instructor and advisor. She was strong, independent, smart, and not afraid when she needed to do what was needed to be done, including killing the bad guys, if necessary, without hesitation and guilt.

Rumors were circulating in GJ in recent months that Dr. Director was considering retiring, and if it were true, Will Du, Assistant Director, would be promoted to take her position. There were no doubts in GJ that Kim would be ideal suited to fill the Assistant Director position. For Kim, this definitely would be career advancement.

The article on Ron was all about his career, yet part of Kim was curious to know how he was fairing in his personal life. She knew it was none of her business, but as she turned a page, her emerald eyes bugged out on finding the very info to satisfy her questions – a brief, one-page summery on Ron's personal life.

Yet it wasn't the article on his personal life that made her reacted in surprise at first, but a picture of Ron and a woman at some sort of formal event. Ron was in a black tux, while his companion was gorgeous in a form-fitting, black, long-sleeved gown with some modest cleavage. She has oriental eyes and skin with long, waist-length, jet-black hair. Her beauty could easily grace any magazine, for she looked like most stunning women in Hollywood. Yet Kim didn't need to read at first anything to know who she was, for she knew her. It was Yori from the Yamanuchi School.

The last time Kim had seen the Japanese woman was 13 years ago on that mission to rescue Sensei, and Ron then was so blind to the obvious signs that Yori really _like-_like him. Now it seemed that Ron had met Yori again, and the two hooked up. The caption under the picture told Kim that Ron and Yori had went all the way, for it said, 'Stoppable and his wife Yori at the San Francisco Alzheimer Foundation's formal charity event.'

So Ron married Yori, it appeared. Reading the article, Kim found out that Ron had met Yori when he was in Japan for nearly two years to help the Bueno Nacho branch there. Afterward, she had gone with Ron when he had returned to the States, and soon after, the pair had gotten married. Since then, they had two children, a boy and a girl. A recent family snap-shot, at the bottom of the page, showed Ron and Yori, in casual clothes, playing with their children on the family room's floor of their California home. Ron was holding in his arms 1-year-old Veronica Akane Stoppable, while Yori was playing a game with 4-year-old Yoshi Donald Stoppable.

Giving a small sigh, Kim wished she could say the same of her personal life. Still single and currently unattached, the redhead had many suitors over the past decade, and she even bedded some of them. Yet nothing serious ever came out of any them, for she was just too busy with her career to have a sincere relationship. The only positive aspect of her private life was that she had made peace with her 'rents and brothers one year after breaking up with Ron, so she now could go visit her parents and her brothers' families. It was good to be an aunt, she mused.

Looking at the pictures of Yori again, Kim couldn't help but think that it was ironic that she and the Japanese woman have switched places. A decade ago, she was the one with long hair and has Ron's love, and now Yori was the one with long hair and has Ron's love, while she has hair short as Yori's used to be. It was quite ironic.

Closing the magazine, Kim took one last long look at the cover photo of her former best friend and boyfriend. Until today, she really had no idea what has happened to him, for her job didn't required her to know anything about the business world unless a business was involved in anything related to GJ. Bueno Nacho certainly didn't come up in GJ's radar, and Kim herself had no interest in the comings-and-goings of the business world.

Placing the magazine back on the rack, Kim again thought of the time she and Ron split apart. It was a hurtful event, made out of spite. Yet looking back, she reasoned maybe it was for the best. Ron couldn't adapt his moral ethics to step up in the game, and it maybe would have endangered many missions if he didn't kill when needed to kill, like Operation White Knight would have required. Now Ron has a promising career in the business arena, where he didn't need to kill anyone in the game he was playing, thus his moral ethics didn't need to be sacrificed.

Would their life be different today if they haven't went separate ways? Maybe. Maybe she would have been the one married to Ron instead of Yori. Maybe she would have been the mother to Ron's children. Maybe she would be currently living a loving life with Ron somewhere, whether it was in California or here in Middleton.

Kim mentally shook her head. She has been taught that playing the 'what if' game was not sound, given it would not change what already has happened. Military leaders, especially in GJ, were taught this, so they would not continuously degrade themselves after a disastrous mission or operation. They learned from what has happened and moved on.

And moved on Kim had done and would do. She has no regrets to what has happened ten years ago. She may have had some guilt for a while after the break-up, but today she didn't feel anything regarding that personal event. Time has mended that wound, for her and Ron, now that she knew he was doing okay.

Pushing her cart, Kim Possible continued her grocery shopping. No regrets what so ever.

The End

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After-story A/Ns:

1) As I said before, there will be a third story in this trilogy to tie up things. After that story, it'll be over for this trilogy, so don't expect me to continue it regardless. Seriously! ;)

2) Now I could hear some of you asking, "Why hook up Ron with Yori?" I say, "Why not?" It was clear in the TV series she was interested in Ron, and it appeared Ron would have been interested in her if he had realized on his own she was interested in him.

For me, if Ron couldn't be with Kim, I could see him getting together with Yori. Like Kim, Yori is strong, independent, laughs at Ron's antics and jokes, and clearly respects Ron for who he is as a person. She could see the inner strength Ron has, thus I feel she is ideal suited for Ron. The Ron/Yori pairing is my second favorite KP shipper couple behind Kim/Ron. :)

Just too bad for me that there are no Ron/Yori fanfics out there, other than one Kim angst story of her attending Ron and Yori's wedding. If people could write stories of Ron being with Bonnie, Tara, Hope, Monique, etc., why not with Yori? (frowns)

3) This story has not been beta-read, thus any spelling and grammar errors are mine. I just didn't feel like waiting a week or more for this story to be beta-read and come back to me before I could post it. Like "Don't Look Back", I just didn't feel like waiting to post a short story.


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